105. 24.04.2012 Where the forest meets the moors.
A special place, so special I’m in two minds as to keep on
banging on about it. Part of me wants
people to know of it’s beauty, but the selfish part of me doesn’t want anybody
to know about it. A bit like the long forgotten ancient stone circle in our
woods. other bit of me would prefer
nobody else knew about it.
Gwydyr Forest, or Gwydir forest if you like, is what the guidebooks
would call a magical place.
There are huge towering Douglas Firs and Norway Spruces some
of them more than 180 year old. Shirley Bassey can remember when they were
saplings. Apparently. Swathes of the
forest contain some of the most important areas of native Welsh oak woodlands.
If you know what you’re looking for you could see buzzards, peregrines, merlins goshawks and black grouse, but to be brutally frank I’m no Iolo Williams - for one I don’t look that good in shorts and secondly with the exception of the black grouse I wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other. As the ten year old Tim once wrote on a project about them “ a bird of prey is like an owl that doesn’t look like an owl but has claws and a big beak”
If you know what you’re looking for you could see buzzards, peregrines, merlins goshawks and black grouse, but to be brutally frank I’m no Iolo Williams - for one I don’t look that good in shorts and secondly with the exception of the black grouse I wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other. As the ten year old Tim once wrote on a project about them “ a bird of prey is like an owl that doesn’t look like an owl but has claws and a big beak”
As well as the
countless mountain streams, lakes and waterfalls, there are three major rivers in the forest, The Llugwy, Lledr and the Machno which all
drain into the Conwy at some point or other before it reaches the flood plain
near the sea.
Occasionally you’ll glimpse the mountains of the Glyderau,
Carneddau and the peaks of Snowdonia.
If you’re lucky, you might see a red squirrel, if you’re
dead dead dead lucky you might see a pine marten as this is one of the few areas
on this little island where they are still found, Scotland being the other bit.
Nobody has actually seen one, but they’ve found their droppings and done DNA
tests on them. I stood in something, but once again I’m no Iolo Williams and
I’d left my pine marten DNA kit at home so who can say what it might’ve been.
All I know is that John said it was nothing to do with him.
Today’s picture was taken on the very edge of the woods with
the wild and empty moors rolling into the mountains in the distance. Magical.
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